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Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures

by Emma Straub (Goodreads Author)

3.22 of 5 stars 3.22 · rating details · 1,365 ratings · 329 reviews

The enchanting story of a midwestern girl who escapes a family tragedy and is remade as a movie star during Hollywood’s golden age.

In 1920, Elsa Emerson, the youngest and blondest of three sisters, is born in idyllic Door County, Wisconsin. Her family owns the Cherry County Playhouse, and more than anything, Elsa relishes appearing onstage, where she soaks up the approval...more

Hardcover, 306 pages

Published September 4th 2012 by Riverhead Hardcover (first published January 1st 2012)

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Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures
by Emma Straub (Goodreads Author)

Release date: Jul 02, 2013

“At once a delicious depiction of Hollywood’s golden age and a sweet, fulfilling story about one woman’s journey through fame, love, and loss.” —Bosto…more

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Aug 23, 2012 Jeanette rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: all-fiction, america, domestic-and-relationship-fiction, av

I made the mistake of thinking Laura Lamont was some lesser-known film star with whom I wasn't familiar. Turns out she came straight from Emma Straub's imagination. The author did a lot of research about the golden age of Hollywood, and she put great care into the development of her story. Sorry to say, without any actual Hollywood touchstones, there's not enough stardust to keep it interesting.

The novel is rather bland and lacks the tang of reality. Even the film studios, execs, and names of o...more

17 likes · like · see review

Jun 05, 2012 Laura rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-mt-bookpile

The old days of the studio system will perplex many readers: how could anyone want to be a star badly enough to allow a stranger to change your name... you hair color... your marital status... your sexual orientation... your accent... your talent? This book goes some of the way towards explaining that.

Laura was born Elsa, a Wisconsin girl of strong Norwegian stock. Her father runs a summer stock theatre, and she and her sisters Hildy and Josephine help out with the cooking, cleaning and other re...more

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Apr 04, 2013 Lauren rated it 2 of 5 stars

It wasn’t until after I finished this book that I realized the title might have two meanings: the obvious one (that it relates to a film star’s life) and the thematic one (that this is a novel as told by a series of snapshots of the titular character’s life). Now, I might be completely wrong about the dual meaning (I haven’t seen the latter referenced in any press on the book, although I haven’t looked that hard), but the dual meaning makes me like the novel slightly better so I’m sticking with...more It wasn’t until after I finished this book that I realized the title might have two meanings: the obvious one (that it relates to a film star’s life) and the thematic one (that this is a novel as told by a series of snapshots of the titular character’s life). Now, I might be completely wrong about the dual meaning (I haven’t seen the latter referenced in any press on the book, although I haven’t looked that hard), but the dual meaning makes me like the novel slightly better so I’m sticking with it.

This is an ambitious novel, fitting the story of a star of Hollywood’s Golden Age over a five-decade span into 300 pages. That’s part of why I’m doing a longer review for this book: given the ambition hinted at within its pages, dismissing it in a few lines seems unfair. So it is an ambitious novel, but it’s that ambition that dooms the book, leaving it as a series of disjointed sketches with little insight into Hollywood, the broader era, or even the main character, Laura Lamont / Elsa Emerson.

Throughout the novel, Laura exists within a bubble. There are only token references to major events occurring (the Depression, World War II, the rise of television) but those are mostly on the periphery of her life. It’s an odd choice, given how central many of those events were to both her generation and Hollywood. As it is a 300-page novel, cuts had to be made somewhere, but the complete disconnect from the wider world hurts rather than helps the narrative.

The bigger issue is that Laura also exists in a bubble within her own life. Hollywood is such a tangential part of the novel that the story could have been set anywhere with very few changes. Laura is, at the end of the day, a career woman who gives up her career to raise a family and has to deal with the normal events that affect most families. In theory, I like the idea of a novel that strips away the glamor of Hollywood and shows an actress as an ordinary person, unable to escape the realities of life, for better or worse.

But that’s me putting a lot of subtext into a novel that, honestly, isn’t that great in execution.

Full disclosure: I live in Los Angeles. I moved here (also from the Midwest) around the same time in my life as Laura / Elsa did, give or take a few decades. This is a heady city in which to come of age. To a Midwesterner (and I’m not alone in saying this), it can, at first, seem like a foreign city. But we never see that disconnect with Elsa. She never steps into Hollywood or interacts with the city in a meaningful way. When things happen in this book, they happen to her. Laura might be one of the most passive main characters I’ve encountered.

That, to me, is the central part of why the book fails: her inaction and lack of ambition don’t jive with who she is supposed to be. Actors, by their nature, are networkers. They have to be. I’m not directly involved in the entertainment industry, but it’s hard to live in Los Angeles without encountering it. The Laura / Elsa character is a fiction of the worst sort. Yes, lucky breaks happen (although they are the exception), but no one in this town succeeds without a lot of ambition and assertiveness – and that’s not a recent occurrence. As an acquaintance put it (and I paraphrase): lucky breaks only matter if you actually do something with them.

Laura gets lucky breaks, but she never exerts herself. She’s a doll that has good things happen to her, and while parts of that narrative made for some of the strongest points of the story, it falters without the counterbalance of Laura’s own ambition. While the author did try and tackle the divide between Elsa (her private persona) and Laura (her public persona), it’s a shallow, clunky insertion and could, once again, be put into any book about someone’s private vs. public life. There’s no mention of how the ambition and assertiveness needed by actresses in Hollywood was at odds with the portrayal of the idealized woman of mid-century America. Instead, things happen to Laura and she goes along with it and maybe has a few awkwardly-inserted deep thoughts to make the book seem important.

I’m honestly not sure why the novel was set in Hollywood, except as a convenient hook to a story the author wanted to tell about a woman’s life. There’s a lack of authenticity about the Hollywood scenes that hinder an already weak plot.

One more point and then I’ll finish: several years ago, I was at a small party for a television show. It wasn’t a huge show, although it had decent ratings and a devoted following. The party was mostly people involved with the show, who worked long hours together everyday and were, if I had to guess, not thrilled that they were losing an evening to what was, to them, a work event. My clearest memory of the evening was when the star of the show stepped into the room. A hush fell over the room, people looked in her direction and, for the tiniest of moments, everything in that room was directed to her. And then the conversations resumed, she went around to talk to people, and I wondered at what it would be like to draw that sort of attention, even among people who saw you everyday. Watching that moment, I understood why some actors are willing to go to such extremes to be famous and to hold onto that fame.

Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures plays with that idea, but it’s a shallow sort of toying with the idea rather than any meaningful exertion. It reminded me nothing of the Los Angeles I know now or I've heard about from stories of its halcyon days in the midcentury. It’s an ambitious story written by someone who did some research but lacks the understanding of the place and people to give the story the backbone and heart it needs. In painting a pretty picture of fame without sacrifice, of a woman who never meaningfully exerts herself to achieve her goals, it’s odd to then have a story that tries to center on the messy realities of life behind the glamour. Not recommended. (less)

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Feb 24, 2013 Clare rated it 3 of 5 stars

It feels like I've read this book before... Even though I haven't. This book read like a Danielle Steel novel - beautiful young thing with a tragic childhood event comes to Hollywood, finds great love, loses great love, overcomes tragedy.

This book spends only a brief time on the transformation of Elsa Emerson into Laura Lamont, and instead focuses (disproportionally in my mind) on Laura's life after she is out of the Hollywood business. Laura is widowed and her husband's death leaves a gaping f...more

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Jan 27, 2013 Cheryl A rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

This debut novel had such a promising premise, but didn't quite live up to expectations. Beginning in Door County, Wisconsin, the novel tells the story of Elsa Emerson, the youngest of three daughters. Her parents own the Cherry County Playhouse and Elsa enjoys appearing onstage. After a family tragedy, Elsa manages to marry one of the young actors who is going to Hollywood, where they both plan on being stars.

At a wrap party, pregnant Elsa catches the attention of the producer Irving Green, who...more

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Dec 23, 2012 Annabel Smith rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, mental-health, usa

It didn't knock my socks off. The story felt a little predictable, especially the first half of the book which chronicles the title character's rise to stardom - I felt like things were being described to me which I had already seen for myself (i.e. cliches). Some of the characters felt quite one-dimensional (her first husband, for example, felt like a vehicle to progress the action in a certain direction).

Later on, when life gets tough for Laura, I found it more interesting but even then I wasn...more

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Dec 01, 2012 Brenda rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: historical-fiction

I imagine that the golden age of Hollywood would give a writer a wealth of stunning things to write about. After all, some of the star's actual lives were more salacious than the ones being acted on on the screen. Did Emma Straub take this and run with it? Absolutely not.

Straub is a good writer. And the beginning of the book, set in Wisconsin, did trick me into thinking this book would be a grand old time. However she made a woman who could have been a fabulous, glamorous independent dame into...more

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Oct 20, 2012 Lydia Presley rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, coming-of-age, fiction, feminism, historic-fiction

I've been in love with family sagas that begin somewhere around the 1920's and Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures is another title to add to that list.

Laura Lamont (who was not a real actress, as familiar as her name might sound) was born Elsa Emerson in Door County, Wisconsin to a family of theater-lovers. Her father who owned a theater company invested in his three daughters but ended up with just one who loved the stage - Elsa.

Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures travels from Elsa/Laura's life as a y...more

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Oct 16, 2012 Laurie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Elsa Emerson grows up in small town Wisconsin, in a household that is also the local little theater. Every summer, young actors come and stay with the family and put on shows in the converted barn, inspiring a love of show business in the two younger sisters. She makes her escape from Door County by marrying an aspiring actor who is heading for Hollywood, a move that becomes a misery to her but also the vehicle to the life she wants. When she meets studio manager Irving Green, he turns out to be...more

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Oct 09, 2012 Candace Cobb rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: drama

I had such great hopes for this book. I heard Emma Straub on NPR talking about the book, realized she was Peter Straub's daughter (who doesn't love Peter Straub??), and I liked the subject matter. Unfortunately, it didn't live up to my expectations.

The book is told soley through the point of view of the main character, Laura Lamont, who is one of the most vapid characters ever written. Life rolls over her, and she just let's it happen, over and over again. She is completely inactive. The only mo...more

12 likes · like · see review

Sep 27, 2012 Dan rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: professional-reviews

Originally published in Time Out New York

Emma Straub’s recent short fiction collection, Other People We Married, was well received and praised by literary luminaries from Dan Chaon to Lorrie Moore. So it follows that the Brooklyn bookseller’s debut novel would be highly anticipated.

Unfortunately, Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures fails to meet the author’s lofty ambitions. Blond, ordinary theater brat Elsa Emerson leaves picturesque Door County, Wisconsin, and transforms into alluring Golden Age H...more

6 likes · like · see review

Sep 24, 2012 Charlie is currently reading it

There is a definite possibility that I won't finish this book. The writing style isn't bad but the characters are bland and boring. It's like a dish cooked with no spices, not even a dash of salt & pepper. The main character, Laura (aka Elsa) has no definition. She is just there. I can imagine that if I could hear her voice it would be filled with sighs, monotone, languid. Nothing seems to get a spark or a reaction out of her. She just accepts whatever takes place, good or bad. Is she insecu...more

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Sep 18, 2012 christa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Say we were all sitting around a table right now. A big bowl of tortilla chips, a rainbow array of San Pellegrino flavors at the ready. We’d just chipped the Yahtzee cup from overuse. We all took turns sighing dramatically until I suggested a way to kill time:

“I have an idea. What if we all tried to imagine the life of a young girl from the Midwest who makes for California and is built into a good old fashioned Hollywood starlet?”

We would, undoubtedly, create something that sounded a lot like...more Say we were all sitting around a table right now. A big bowl of tortilla chips, a rainbow array of San Pellegrino flavors at the ready. We’d just chipped the Yahtzee cup from overuse. We all took turns sighing dramatically until I suggested a way to kill time:

“I have an idea. What if we all tried to imagine the life of a young girl from the Midwest who makes for California and is built into a good old fashioned Hollywood starlet?”

We would, undoubtedly, create something that sounded a lot like Emma Straub’s debut novel “Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures.” The origin story for leading ladies is a familiar one. Take a blonde farm girl and put her on a bus for Los Angeles. Restrict her intake to water and air with celery on special occasions, use the finest pencil to create matching crescents on her forehead, point her bazongas toward a studio exec and give her a little nudge. The awards will be followed by migraines which are followed by the ignominious graduation from ingenue to the role of the ingenue’s mother. If she hasn’t killed herself yet, well, she just hasn’t tried the right drug cocktail.

Straub hasn’t deviated much from the same-old, same-old script for her version of the long sad life of Elsa Emerson who grows up in Door County in the 1920s. Her parents host a summer stock-style theater on their farm during the summer and young actors from around the country spend the summer camped out in cabins between runs of “The Royal Family,” etc. Elsa is the youngest of three children, including her favorite sister -- the all-flair Hilda -- and the quiet worker bee Josephine. Her mother is cold, her father is warm. Hilda gets caught up in a summer fling that ends with her starring in a dramatic final act, which sets the scene for Elsa to eventually hitch her star to a young actor’s Greyhound ticket. She lands in La-La-Land and ultimately gets a small litter, a new name, a new hair color and a new high-power husband.

Laura Lamont becomes the go-to girl for sad story lines and even wins an Academy Award. Then things get a little “All About Eve”-ish.

Straub’s novel is heavy on exposition, light on character development. It’s like a “True Hollywood Story” minus the interviews and insight. She’s got an interesting juxtaposition with Elsa-turned-Laura, but doesn’t really mine the two versions of the same woman. When she begins a relationship with a studio head, it’s hard to tell whether this means anything to her or if it’s just another rung on a ladder. And when Straub doubles back to paint it as a something genuine, it feels false. Her instances of foreshadowing feel more light flash hazard lights. I can’t figure out why Straub decided to tell this story, which could easily be the biography of any young Hollywood actress in the dawn of talkies.

Of course, it’s a little sweet -- albeit darkly sweet -- as anyone who read and loved Straub’s short story collection “Other People We Married” might expect. But it could use more consideration and depth. (less)

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Sep 02, 2012 Telaina rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: rumpus

I would give this about 3.5 stars actually. I'm taking a star and a half off because Laura was such a simplistic character with no inner life. She had no idea about people's motivations, or her own... which I guess might be realistic of a young woman in Hollywood, but I found harder to believe as the book progressed and she aged. Her love was simple. Her grief was simple. She didn't have the depth or human complexity to carry a novel that would grip you or change your life. She did have enough h...more

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Jul 13, 2012 Erica rated it 5 of 5 stars

There's always a nervousness that accompanies reading a book written by someone you know. I get a minor version of this quite often when I sit down to read a book by an author I'm working with, but it's infinitely worse when it's a friend. What if you don't like it? How will you ever talk to that person again if their writing sucks?

Luckily, my feelings about Laura Lamont are the complete and total opposite. I LOVED this book, the story of a Hollywood actress from her childhood in 1930s Wisconsin...more

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Nov 24, 2012 Adam rated it 1 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Sep 20, 2012 Brie rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is one of those reads that just sped by as I was reading it. It wasn't an earth shakingly good book but it was bad at all. It kept my attention with the story of the rise and fall of a Hollywood actress and how she found herself in the process of having all this happen to her.

Laura seemed like a real person, traumatized by the death of her sister and propelled by her family's reaction to it to leave the Midwest and head to Hollywood. Once in Hollywood she gets caught up in the studio system...more

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Sep 08, 2012 Kelly Hager rated it 4 of 5 stars

Elsa Emerson was born in Wisconsin. Her parents owned a theater and hired actors to put on plays every summer. One year she gets a bit part and is completely consumed by the acting bug. She marries at 17 and moves to California, where she is christened Laura Lamont by a studio executive. In short order, she has two kids, gets divorced and becomes a movie star.

There is, of course, so much more to the book than this. I kept picturing her as Lauren Bacall (although I'm pretty sure that she's not su...more

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Sep 04, 2012 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars

If you are looking for pure entertainment look no further than Emma Straub’s novel Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures. Straub takes readers back to the golden age of Hollywood, when studios held contracts on star actors, and controlled their lives, both public and private. Elsa Emerson is the youngest of three girls in Door County Wisconsin when the novel opens. Her parents run a summer theater company and Elsa longs to become an actress. At the age of seventeen, when a young man, Gordon Pitts, arr...more

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Apr 23, 2013 Kelly Massry rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Emma Straub is a bookseller who works at Bookcourt in Brooklyn. I’d never visited the store but had recently read a guest post she did for Barnes and Noble about the joys of bookselling. Her feelings so mirrored the way I felt when I manned the Children Department of Barnes and Noble as a teenager that I had to read this book, which was getting so much praise (Ex: It was a BN Discover Great New Writers selection).

I found the story itself engaging and was completely immersed all the way through....more

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Nov 14, 2012 Jody rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: abandoned

I very rarely abandon books part way through. I'm eternally optimistic it will get better, even if it starts off slow. I did that for about half of Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures, but now I'm done. The writing is sophomorically passive (and as a sophomoric, passive writer myself, I know whereof I speak). It's "First she did this, then she did that, and when he said this, she felt this way about it" with some flowery description thrown in every so often from the very first page. The characters a...more

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Sep 10, 2012 bookczuk rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: early-review-librarything, first-novel-or-book, somewhat-disappointing, thougt-i-was-gonna-like

My father was a child of the great movie studios. At the ripe old age of 4 or 5 he made the transition from Vaudeville to Fox Studio, and had several silent films under his belt as "Little Eli." He also was in a precursor to the Little Rascals, called the Sunshine Kids. One made it; one didn't. He used to talk about Jackie Coogan as his big rival. We have posters and pictures, and at least a copy of one film he was in. As a child, it fueled my imagination to think I could have been the daughter...more My father was a child of the great movie studios. At the ripe old age of 4 or 5 he made the transition from Vaudeville to Fox Studio, and had several silent films under his belt as "Little Eli." He also was in a precursor to the Little Rascals, called the Sunshine Kids. One made it; one didn't. He used to talk about Jackie Coogan as his big rival. We have posters and pictures, and at least a copy of one film he was in. As a child, it fueled my imagination to think I could have been the daughter of a star. But the depression had other plans for the life of Little Eli. He went on to become a physician of note, and though he was nominated for a Nobel Prize, it went instead to Jackie Coogan in the scientific world. He always felt like a footnote in history.

Which brings me to this novel. I had great hopes for a glimpse into the world of the studios in their glory years. The classics of film still remain my favorites. Give me Claudette Colbert, Katherine Hepburn, or Mirna Loy, or some equally slim, glamorous female pitted against the men of the day -- Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, or even Alan Ladd (who my husband was named after) black and white film moving on the reels, and the music of the big bands, and I'm a happy camper. Though a large portion of this book takes place in that world, I never really was transported there. I'm not sure if it's because Emma Straub chose to make up a studio and stars entirely, with no basis in the real history or what. But the transport to that world never happened.

Elsa Emerson, enters stage right, youngest daughter in a Wisconsin family who run the summer theater in their small town. Elsa eventually wends her way to Hollywood (with a new husband she met in summer stock and later divorces), has several children and morphs into Laura Lamont, under the guidance of studio head Irving Green. The story follows Elsa/Laura's life over the next 50 years. What struck me most was how unhappy most of the people in Laura's life were. True, she did find her big love, but even that was cut short. The joy in life seemed to be lacking, especially as Laura moves from starlet to former star. I did like the way the author chose to end the book, with a new phase opening for Lana, that at least looked hopeful.

I'm not sure what I expected of this book -- maybe more of the Hollywood I knew existed at the time. Everything was made up, without touching the actual Hollywood of those days. Even the rival studio was made up. I wish Laura's world could have slipped into the golden age I know existed back then. I wish her family (birth, acquired, and studio) could have had more joy in it. As it was, I felt that I was looking at a faded picture of a place I knew and loved.

Rounding up to 3 stars because the story did keep me engaged, even though it did make me sad. Also, some of my beefs in the writing may have been due to this being an advanced reader edition of the book.

Received via the kindness of LibraryThing and the publisher.(less)

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Jan 02, 2013 Maggie S. rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Oct 01, 2012 Julia rated it 4 of 5 stars

It’s rare, ok, unheard of, for me to read a book when everyone’s talking about it. Usually I read books years or months after they are discussed, or they don’t get discussed. Tomorrow night the author will sign books in Rhinebeck, two hours south of where I live. She did an interview with Joe Donahue on WAMC last week and over the weekend with npr. Two booksellers recommended it on Roundtable. But I got it because it’s a novel about a movie star in Hollywood and I’m thinking I may try to write a...more

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Aug 26, 2012 Laura added it

"There were only a handful of moments Laura could think of, in the span of her entire life, when she was unable to identify the seam in between what she felt and what she said or did, moments during which all of the selves that she'd ever been lined up perfectly, with no cracks in between."

I just want to GUSH about this book. I really loved it.

The wonderful, bookselling Emma Straub's book comes out next Tuesday and everyone should buy it. It is about a young Wisconsin girl, Elsa Emerson, who dr...more

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Jun 13, 2013 Diana rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-fiction, historical-fiction

When I was a about 11, I discovered The Bookateria, a used paperback bookstore with good prices in Ocean City,NJ, and I spent a few years tearing through Sidney Sheldon, Jacqueline Susann, and Danielle Steel books, among others. This book reminds me of Sidney Sheldon's rags-to-very-glamorous-riches stories, but with better writing. The nostalgic Sidney-Sheldon-ness of this book can be the only explanation for why I finished it. The writing really wasn't that good. There's not a very fully realiz...more

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Jun 03, 2013 Claire rated it 3 of 5 stars

Oh, Laura Lamont, if I've read your story once I've read it a million times. Emma Straub could've fleshed you out so much more, made you so much more interesting, and added at least another 100 pages to your story. But for whatever reason she chose to make you just sort of bland, with no real true ambition besides relying on luck and happenstance. I think Emma Straub herself knows that this story has been written many times over-in fiction, biographies and autobiographies-and that her title is s...more Oh, Laura Lamont, if I've read your story once I've read it a million times. Emma Straub could've fleshed you out so much more, made you so much more interesting, and added at least another 100 pages to your story. But for whatever reason she chose to make you just sort of bland, with no real true ambition besides relying on luck and happenstance. I think Emma Straub herself knows that this story has been written many times over-in fiction, biographies and autobiographies-and that her title is somewhat metaphorical in the sense of "pictures" being the snapshots of a person's life. As a novel, it could've been so much better, though, if Straub had explored Laura's relationships with her family and friends in greater detail rather than constantly repeating Laura's obsessive preoccupations with death and her children. I kept wanting Laura to snap out of it and stand up for herself, but she never really does. She just keeps floating around, waiting for the next person to come along and tell her what to do and saying "sweetie" and "my love" to her woebegone children while patting them on the cheek.

So, in that sense, I can see that perhaps Straub wanted to write a book that shows what it was probably like for many actresses in the golden age of Hollywood: they had dreams and ambitions but often weren't allowed to make their own choices about their lives or careers and so they just settled for marriage and kids. But then I can think of so many real-life actresses for whom this was not the case and, in the end, it isn't for Laura, either. She decides to get back on the stage as a 60-year-old in the same play she starred in as a child in Wisconsin (circle of life metaphor, I suppose?). But then Straub ends the book. How frustrating! I hesitated for a long time to read this book because I knew I'd read so many similar stories and, yet, Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures kept me interested and wanting to know what would happen to the characters despite their one dimensionality. I'm not really sure why, as the writing is not particularly great and the themes often overly repetitive. Perhaps it's because there aren't too many authors working today who are writing novels about old Hollywood. So, with that said, I hope Emma Straub invents another character and gives her a fuller, more nuanced story. (less)

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Dec 11, 2012 Marie rated it 3 of 5 stars

I was really torn about giving the marking of this book, which makes me sound like a jerk because it's not as if anyone really cares about how torn up I am about this book, while there are people in Brisbane who are living in Summer without air conditioning...
But I was. So deal.

The first section, 'Cherry', is one of the favourite things I've ever read, and I will probably read it again a thousand times over. It held so much promise for the rest of the novel, which turned out flat and boring on m...more

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Oct 26, 2012 Sarah Beth rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: age-29

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Sep 16, 2012 Meg - A Bookish Affair rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, fiction, historical-fiction

3.5. Laura Lamont was born Elsa of Wisconsin. She grew up around her father's theatre, dreaming of the day where she might make it in Hollywood. To me, Old Hollywood is pretty much the ultimate in glitz and glam. I can totally see why Elsa would want to go there.

To me, the title "Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures" has sort of a double meaning. First, yes, this book is about Laura Lamont becoming a movie star. To me, the title could also refer to how the book is written. We only get pictures of Lau...more

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About Emma Straub

Emma Straub is from New York City. Her first novel, Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures, will be published by Riverhead Books in September 2012. Her debut story collection Other People We Married, arrived in February 2012, also published by Riverhead Books. Her fiction and non-fiction have been published by Tin House, The Paris Review Daily, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Time, Slate, Co...more

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“She wanted the world to stop and take notice before hobbling forward, forever changed. The problem was that no one seemed to be changed but her.” — 2 people liked it

“That was what love was, though, wasn't it? Holding each other's misery as close as your own?” — 2 people liked it

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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13588166-laura-lamont-s-life-in-pictures?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1337466907l/13588166.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13588166-laura-lamont-s-life-in-pictures?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures by Emma Straub[/url]

Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures

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